Vibrant Colors Beginning to Fade
by The Broken Watchman
Summary: A collection of stories detailing the chaotic lives of the members of team RWBY, and the many antics the group goes through together on their paths to becoming huntresses. Filled with laughs, tears, and quite a few angry huffs, will the group hold together an burn bright, or will they cave in under the pressures of their own responsibilities and slowly fade away?
1. Chapter 1

Bloody Bullets

"Is this legal" Weiss asked while looking at the work station Ruby had set up in her apartment. This was the first time Weiss had ever been in Ruby's apartment since her partner had moved out of the dorm, and she hadn't been sure what to expect of Ruby's place.

"Weiss, you said you were curious how we make our ammo, and now we are showing you" Yang chided her, keeping her tone light so that the heiress wouldn't take offense.

"That doesn't answer my question though" Weiss muttered. She then thought to herself 'of course this wasn't legal. How could it be?'

Ruby, in preparation for the new school year, which was only two weeks away, had decided to move out of the on campus dorms, and into an apartment of her own. She had been the last to do so in the group, as Weiss had been the first, followed by Blake, then Yang. Originally Yang had wanted to share a place with her adopted sister, which Ruby had found hard to refuse without offending Yang. Eventually, after a lot of dragging feet by Ruby, Weiss decided to do it for her partner and just told Yang point blank "Ruby wants her own place." Yang's response had been "that's cool". Weiss was still annoyed that the weeks of Ruby coming to her for help trying to think of ways to fix their issue was resolved so easily.

Blake and Yang were both junior hunters, and if the amount of time it took for the two of them to receive their admittance was to be used as a frame of reference, Ruby and Weiss would be receiving theirs within the month. Everyone had tried to persuade Ruby to wait until she had been admitted before upgrading her living conditions, but the redhead had decided that it would be best to do this as soon as possible, as she was tired of having to use the schools workshop.

The workshop supplied by the school wasn't bad, but it wasn't specialized in anyway, as Beacon had to accommodate the hundreds of different types of weapons that could walk through its doors during the year. Ruby's weapon was unique, and almost none of the tools in the shop, except for the most basic wrenches and files, could be used on Crescent Rose. While originally Ruby thought she would have to rent out a garage, she thought of a better way to service her scythe, in her own apartment/workshop.

Ruby's apartment wasn't that big, and couldn't have been more 700 square feet. However it felt pretty large on account of it only being two rooms, a large living room/kitchen/work area and a small bathroom in the back, plus a balcony. Ruby's apartment was on the top floor of an apartment building somewhat close to campus, which she had gotten for a steal, only $500 a month, plus electricity and water. The place had taken a lot to get running, and it was pretty much taped together from scraps, duct tape, and what she could borrow from her mechanic's job, but Ruby was proud of it.

The room was a perfect square, and was pretty much cut into four quarters. One fourth was dedicated to what an apartment needed to be considered livable. On one side of the quarter there was a small refrigerator, a microwave, a sink, and a scratched up old wooden table. Three old chairs, none of which matched each other, circled around three sides of the table, the fourth shoved against the wall. On the other was a small couch, which had a blanket draped across the back, and two pillows were placed against each arm. And against the wall perpendicular to the refrigerator was a standing wardrobe, which was slightly open, and jammed to the brim with clothing. There was no bed, or it was inside of the couch. Weiss guessed that the rest of the things that an apartment needed, a washer, dryer, etcetera, were all in the bathroom. This space was the only carpeted area in the entire apartment, the rest of the floors made of the cold, grey concrete found in mechanic shops and home improvement stores.

The rest of the room however, was exactly how Weiss had imagined it. In the opposite corner, closest to the entrance, was a huge work table, which was just a bunch of 3 inch thick slabs of wood sanded and stuck together, and then drilled into a bunch of metal drawers. At one point the table might have looked nice, but now it was a huge mess. With chunks missing from the finish, scorch marks, spray paint, drill holes, and a myriad of other abuses now present, the table looked like a mess, with metal shavings filling the divots and gaps in the wood. Another table, which was a little more presentable was placed 5 feet away, and seemed to be covered in sharpie markings with exact measurements drawn along the wood. Surrounding that table was at least 30 boxes of parts, each labeled meticulously with number and letter acronyms, although Weiss had no clue what they meant.

In the third quarter was racks upon racks of tools, many of which Weiss had no clue as to their purpose. Most looked dangerous, and many of them could pass for weapons themselves. She recognized a few, and realized that those must have been the tools Ruby had ordered for the purpose of servicing Weiss's sword. When Ruby was ordering the majority of her tools, she also ordered the extra few tools necessary to service the rest of the group's weapons, offering them up so that the rest of the group's weapons would be in good condition as well. While Weiss had appreciated the sentiment, and had tried to fraise what had needed to say in the nicest way possible, she informed Ruby that "nobody is laying a finger on my Rapier except me". Ruby always got fidgety when she said that, but Weiss had assumed the thought of being unable to mess with a state of the art weapon was killing her. She hadn't meant what she said in a mean sense, as she was sure that Ruby would be perfectly competent at repairing Myrtenaster, but there were a few things that Weiss wished to keep secret about her weapon, even from her teammates. While Weiss was terrible with tools, she had forced herself to at least be proficient enough to take care of her rapier.

In place of decorations, Ruby had dozens upon dozens of blueprints for weapons hanging upon the walls. The largest of all was against the wall next to the entrance, a hand drawn life sized schematic for Ruby's Crescent Rose. The drawing, which must have taken hours to do, as it was drawn by hand on blue gridded paper, showed Ruby's weapon broken up into its most basic parts, and was covered in dotted lines showing how the parts interlocked. Similar smaller schematics were on the walls detailing the weapon in the several forms it took. Weiss was surprised when she saw a few schematics for the other weapons on campus, including Yang's, Blake's, Pyrrha's, and Nora's in other random places on the wall. While hunters weren't extremely secretive, it was rare for a weapon to be handed over to another for scrutiny, and the hidden mechanics of the weapons were often kept close to their wielder's chest. When Weiss noticed a very familiar looking rapier drawing hanging on the wall, she ripped it down, scrutinizing it to make sure that it wasn't just a coincidental similar sword. When she read the inscription on the handle she had made by herself with an exacto-knife, which she had always covered by the leather wrap she curled around the metal and never visible, Weiss was sure the weapon was hers. Turning the drawing towards Ruby, she exclaimed "where did you get this?!"

Looking like a deer caught in headlights, Ruby's mind tried to think of a way to explain herself without it sounding that bad. A few ideas popped into her mind, all useless. She finally decided to just be honest, in hopes of escaping the majority of Weiss's wrath. "Well, uh, remember that time you left your rapier in my bag because you didn't bring one to gym? You then left without it, and I gave it back to you the next day. I figured that I should make sure it was okay before I returned it". Shrugging her shoulders, she hoped that Weiss wouldn't dive across the room to rip her head off. Yang had become really interested in the placement of scraps in the 3 junk boxes across the room, as if she was pretending to not hear anything.

"Really…" Weiss couldn't really be mad about that, as that day had happened before she had made clear the hands off rule on her weapon. Not to say that she wasn't annoyed, but she was less than if Ruby had directly gone against one of Weiss's requests.

Ruby could sense that Weiss wasn't that mad, which really surprised her. She then, deciding that she couldn't do much more harm at this point, asked her partner a question that had always been itching at the back of her mind. ""Well, I expected that to go worse. Since you're not strangling me, I've been wanting to ask you something about that schematic. I think it is messed up. The sword is pretty standard, and is surprisingly durable for how light and thin the blade is, but I wasn't able to understand how the dust selection mechanism works without taking it too far apart. It looked to me like it operates similar to a revolver, but I couldn't tell how the catch worked."

Weiss had always wanted to keep this part of her weapon a secret, as it was probably its only weakness as a weapon, simply stated "there isn't one." Ruby was even more confused, and wanted to ask a few more questions, but at that point the door swung open and Blake came in, shaking of an umbrella behind her. Weiss was really grateful for the moment break, as she would now have a second to think, unsure if she would come clean or not. While it may not be tonight, she knew that eventually Ruby would ask again, and she would be force to answer.

Myrtenaster was a good weapon, one that Weiss had mastered using and wouldn't ever dream of replacing. That being said, there were several flaws in its design, which she often wished weren't present. All of these flaws were related to the way the dust chambers worked, and these problems had often led to mishaps during battles. The six chambers for storing dust inside of the hilt operated similarly to an old fashioned revolver, and at the flick of a wrist she could change to a different chamber during battle. Unfortunately, the weapon had no way of controlling which chamber it landed on, and the dust reserve Weiss was forced to use was left purely to chance. While she could then flick her wrist again, the time her weapon took spinning was valuable during a fight. Weiss had always found slight annoyance in the family weapon, which had received the nickname 'Gambler' from several of its previous users.

They both walked up to greet Blake, Weiss folding the paper schematic and placing it in her coat pocket in order to keep it from Ruby's collection. They both noticed the small inconspicuous splint upon Blake's wrist that Yang had mentioned earlier in the afternoon. Her last mission, a recon assignment to mark out the migration patterns of some beowolves, had been both extremely dangerous and a great success. Blake's only injury was a sprained wrist, which would be healed in a few days. Shaking her head to get out the few drops of water she felt fall on her head while closing the umbrella, she looked up smiling and said "sorry I'm late, I got caught up at the cross walk by one of our professors. Did you know we are getting a new history professor?" While Weiss found this information interesting, and asked Blake a few questions, Ruby and Yang dropped back to the second table, getting out several of the tools that they would need in the next few hours.

"Do you think the humidity will be a problem?" Ruby was worried, as it was the rainy season, and they had been forced to put off crafting bullets twice this week. Excess moisture in the air could be a very bad thing for the bullets, and Ruby wasn't keen on getting any new scars from dust explosions.

"It shouldn't as long as it doesn't start raining any worse. We've put this off for the last week, and I'm really starting to run low". Thinking about that for a second, Yang looked over her shoulder at Blake and asked "so did you want us to make you a batch as well?"

Blake shrugged her shoulders, and in the most noncommittal gesture she could make, she waved a hand and said "I said I would appreciate it if you did, but to not do so if you would rather not. I am not going to be any help in this, so I just wanted to make sure that you are okay with making my bullets with only Ruby's help Yang." While Blake wasn't in anyway poor now, and she had quickly rebuilt the savings she had lost, she was still being somewhat frugal, and wind dust bullets had gone up in price recently as they gained popularity with the hunting crowd. Dust bullet sales went in phases of popularity. Yang was happy about the shifts, as while wind had been rising in cost to Blake's chagrin, fire dust was at an all-time low. Buying the raw supplies was by far cheaper than just purchasing the bullets, if a person was willing to overlook the slight legality issues behind creating them by hand.

"Just makin sure. So we need a few batches for all three of us… Hey princess! You sure you don't want to help?" Yang was only joking, as she knew the heiress had no interest in messing around with the materials, and getting her hands dirty – and possible singed- in the process. "Hey, do me a favor Weiss, just look around the place and make sure Ruby didn't leave a window open or something". Ignoring the denials from Ruby she explained "last thing we need is water in the gunpowder".

There wasn't much to check, as all Weiss had to do was scan the two sets of floor to ceiling windows that were on two sides of the room, showing off the lights of the city's downtown to the north and the east. From here the amphitheater where they had gone to that concert earlier in the summer was visible. After that she opened the bathroom door and called back to Ruby, poking her head around the door "you left the bathroom window open. Also, what kind of flower is in the shelter on the wall? I don't recognize them." Weiss had always had the hobby of gardening, way back to before she knew she was going to be a huntress for the company's sake. At one point in her childhood she had wanted to own a store that doubled as a nursery for plants and a reptile enclosure for endangered species, although she had given up on those childish ideas a long time ago. She still kept up with plants though, and she was always surprised when she ran into a species of flower she hadn't heard of.

After receiving a glare from Yang, Ruby yelled back "not sure; I found them growing in that forest we visited to clear out the beowolf pack last semester".

Once they had made sure that the place was sealed tight, as now Yang didn't trust Ruby's judgment in saying the apartment was fine, Yang and Ruby began. After a moment of discussion, they started with the ammunition that Blake required, as those were the easiest and fastest to produce. Weiss had expected them to start with the metal casings and the pieces of lead, but instead they began with the gunpowder mixture. Blake would ask a question every once and a while, usually questions that Weiss would have asked if they hadn't been voiced already.

"Why aren't you measuring anything?" While there were several scales and weighing trays behind Yang and Ruby, they hadn't been touched through the entire process. Ruby answered back in a very factual tone "we are, but we just measure by volume instead of mass. These mixtures are all ratios of dust to gunpowder, and we already know the weights of the individual parts. We just need to make sure we keep them in balance."

"What kind of balance is it" Weiss asked, curious how precise the two were being.

She found out they were very precise when Ruby commented back "for a standard pistol round with pure wind dust as the catalyst… we would use a ratio of gunpowder to dust at two parts dust for every forty one parts standard gunpowder, give or take a part of gunpowder depending on the preference of the manufacturer. We go with a one in twenty to give the bullets a tiny bit more kick".

Weiss was actually surprised how serious the two were taking this, as usually they would be cracking jokes and laughing while working on assignments together. They worked in dead silence now, only focusing on what was right in front of them. Ruby's constant cheery face actually had a scowl on it, as if the concentration was giving her a headache. Both Blake and Weiss were fascinated in the deadly precision the two of their partners used, and the unspoken harmony that they worked together with. Ruby would measure extremely small amounts of dust into a small chrome scoop, which she said had been treated to not have a static charge and keep particles of the dust stuck to the spoon's surface. In passing she mentioned how yellow dust, which had the elemental properties of lightning, had to be handled with a different set of tools. She would then gently place the dust into the bottom a chrome bowl, which couldn't be set down as it was a perfect semi-sphere. For every one scoop of dust Ruby added, Yang then placed in ten scoops of gunpowder from a spoon twice as large into the bowl, but not mixing the two substances, placing each other side by side in the bowl. Ruby added 20 scoops worth of dust to the bowl, stopping between each scoop to let Yang add the required amount of gunpowder to keep the proportion balanced. Once they finished Yang began to slowly stir the mixture by hand.

When they first started to mix the materials, Blake cried out in protest, saying that what they were doing must be extremely dangerous. In a level voice, Yang replied back "yes it is, but we can't purchase the machinery to mix these as civilians, and getting a license is impossible unless you are creating a distribution company". Thinking for a moment, she also said "don't worry, we have been doing things for the past 2 years this way, and we haven't had an issue yet".

Even though Yang had attempted to give their partners a sense of peace, it was obvious that she was extremely nervous, and was being extra careful not to scrap the bottom to ignite the mixture and create an explosion. As a small bead of sweat dripped down Yang's face, Blake and Weiss would have found the sight of their two partners holding their breath over the sparkling grey mixture amusing if they didn't have a feeling that they had reached the point at which the act was illegal. It was obvious to the two of them why now. If Yang had messed up at this crucial stage, she would have definitely lost a hand, and she would have probably been scarred badly on the rest of her body. Luckily, everything went smoothly, and once they were both satisfied that the mixture's quality they poured the contents of the bowl into a new container, now a chrome cup. Ruby quickly placed a 2 inch thick slab of chrome over the cup, and then they both released a sigh of relief.

Taking a moment to breathe, and to look around, Ruby joked with the two bystanders "you look more nervous than we are".

Weiss was a little surprised by what she had seen, and hadn't expected the process to be so dangerous. "Why don't you just swallow the extra price and buy the bullets you need? This is maddening, for you to go this far for just some chump change."

Yang and Ruby exchanged a look. They had expected questions like this at some point through the night, and they were actually prepared with an answer. Ruby answered back with "first, the quality of our own bullets is much better, and far more consistent. Second, the mixture Yang uses in her slugs isn't sold anywhere, and she couldn't fight the way she does if we didn't make these ourselves".

Both Blake and Weiss were still slightly troubled, but they had decided to not push the issue, eager to be done with the danger and able to move on with their evening. Yang turned to Ruby and asked whether she wanted "to create all of the separate mixtures first, then make all the bullets at once, or make each set of bullets one at a time?"

Ruby looked back at the table, uneager to have to postpone the stress of making the powder again, and said she would rather do all of the gunpowder at once.

While Weiss didn't ask for the exact measurement's this time, she noted that the mixture for Ruby's rifle bullets seemed to use almost double the amount of dust than the pistol bullets made for Blake. Also, two different dust's were used in Ruby's bullets, both wind and fire in equal proportions.

The powder for Yang's bullets was by far the most complicated however. Using three different types of dust, it looked to Weiss and Blake like it was an even split between fire and lightning dust at first. When Ruby mixed the dusts with around eight times the gunpowder, which was by far the most amount of dust they had seen ever go into one bullet, Weiss sighed from relief, thinking that what had been one of the most stressful evenings she had ever had was over. Before they put away the mixture however, Ruby sprinkled an extremely small amount of blue dust over the entire bowl, giving the mixture one more stir, and then finally put away the bowl.

"Okay… we are done with the hard part" Yang finally huffed, glad to have a moment to relax before she went back to her extremely stressful and dangerous job. Ruby, shaking her arms after she had been holding them in such a tight manner for the last hour, walked over to the fridge on the opposite side of the room, and asked to the entire group "does anyone want anything?" She received a chorus of no's, and only pulled out one bottle of water. After holding her breathe for the majority of the time, she washed out her mouth, bringing back some of the wetness that she had lost.

Eager to finish, Yang and Ruby worked as a conveyor belt, and quickly assembled all of the bullets, going through them in the same order they had in assembling the gunpowder. This part seemed far less dangerous, and Weiss and Blake both drifted off to the other parts of the apartment, looking for entertainment on the walls, racks, or in the scrap buckets.

Weiss found a knee high box, which was as wide as she was tall, filled to the brim with old and chipped blades from Crescent Rose. Looking through the box, she felt as though it was a huge waste to use so many blades for one weapon. Picking one of the newer ones toward the top up, she laid the metal along the top of her left arm, or as far as her reach would go up the blade. The piece of metal extended at least a good foot beyond her fingertips, and was balanced precociously on the crook of her elbow. Weiss had always been impressed how Ruby could swing around her weapon with ease, even though it was at two feet longer than Ruby's entire body, and was also heavier as well. She stood there, beginning to imagine the blade whirling around her on the rest of Crescent Rose.

A cheerful voice suddenly chirped behind her "Yeah, I should be a little more conservative with my blades shouldn't I?"

Ruby hadn't meant to startle Weiss, and had walked over quite loudly. Her attempt at being obvious had been in vain, as Weiss was so deep in thought that the sudden sound jerked her out of her waking dreams. Jumping, the blade slid off of Weiss's arm, making a long, shallow stroke across Weiss's skin from the outside of her elbow to the pale girl's armpit.

"Shit!" Ruby grabbed Weiss by the other arm, and brought her over to the table where Yang wasn't continuing to make the bullets. She also gingerly picked up the fallen blade of the ground and brought it with her for inspection, to see if the steel could give Weiss any kind of infection. Ruby had finished her part of the job, putting the dust mixtures into their shells, and now Yang was just pressing the rounds into the casing and sealing the entire bullet. She had already finished the bullets for Blake, and was half way through Ruby's. She stopped when she looked up and saw Ruby leading Weiss to the cleaner table, and got out of the chair she had been standing in to see if she was needed.

Turning over Weiss's arm, to make sure that didn't touch the table and stayed open to the air, Ruby examined the cut. While the cut wasn't deep, it was bleeding profusely, and Weiss would probably pass out from blood loss if something wasn't done quickly. Taking off her belt, Ruby used it as a tourniquet around Weiss's shoulder, to stop the bleeding. Ruby looked up at Yang, and said to her "you know where I keep the first aid kit right?"

Yang responded back "Under the sink in the bathroom."

Ruby nodded and said "get it for me, I need to stitch this."

Looking back down while Yang walked off to the bathroom to get the box, she heard Weiss mumble "not one of my greater moments huh?"

"Don't worry about it; I've hurt myself worse with those blades before, although I think I'm not going to leave them out in the open anymore". Ruby then looked at the piece of metal she had place opposite Weiss, laid with its sharpened edge pointing away from the two of them across the table, and breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm just glad you didn't cut yourself with one of the blade's farther down in the box, those one's are all rusted and I would have to take you to the hospital immediately. We can wait until tomorrow since you cut yourself with this one. I replaced it only two weeks ago after it got chipped by a brick wall".

"I don't want to go to the hospital" Weiss responded meekly. "I'll be fine once you stitch me up. You've done it before."

While it warmed Ruby's heart how much faith Weiss had in her, that wasn't the main issue. "Actually, I want to get you to a hospital for a tetanus shot. The last thing I need is a partner with lock jaw".

At this point, Yang walked up with the first aid kit in hand. "Uh… here" she mumbled, not looking down at the table. While in the heat of battle she could easily overlook it, Yang was normally extremely queasy around the sight of blood, and she had passed out in the past from the sight of it. "Well, I am going to go… Blake, you want to come with?" she called over her shoulder as she began to walk for the door, eager to put what she had seen out of her head.

Blake, who Ruby hadn't realized was standing right behind them, watching the entire process, said "sure". While she sounded as though she didn't really want to leave, Blake also knew that she wasn't needed, and would be in the way. As the raven haired girl began to walk out the door, she said "I'll see you guys tomorrow".

"Don't forget the bullets" Ruby yelled absentmindedly, already searching through the box for a disinfectant. Out of the corner of her vision, she saw a black blur run past her, swoop up two boxes of rounds, and then walk out the door. With the click behind them, it was now just the two of them, one hunched over the other, curving her neck to try and see the wound under a good light.

"This isn't going to leave a pretty scar" Ruby mentioned absentmindedly. While she hadn't gotten a good look at it before hand, now she saw that while the cut was clean, it had sliced a foot and a half long gouge along one of the muscles on Weiss's the slender arm, and the skin was spreading apart as Weiss clenched. "I need you to loosen up" Ruby spoke in a soothing voice.

Weiss just shrugged, which wasn't the best motion, as it caused more blood to leak out of the wound. Shaking her arm slightly, the muscle in her arm relaxed, closing the wound and causing a little more blood to dribble out at the elbow.

Ruby firmly held Weiss's arm at the elbow, holding it with her left hand while holding up a cotton ball soaked with antiseptic in her right. "This is going to sting, but I need you to stay still. On three."

Weiss shook her head in confirmation. "Oneee…twoooo… ARGHHH!"

Ruby hadn't given Weiss the chance to get to three, and on two she began rubbing the cotton into the wound, working her way from Weiss's shoulder down. Weiss gave an initial, involuntary jerk, but after that was as still as possible, scrunching up her eyes as if to imagine the pain is not there. Ruby worked about a third of the wound, starting from the top and working her way down, and then grabbed a second cotton ball. She used a third to finish up, and then cleaned around the wounds surface. Putting aside the cotton balls, she now got out a needle and the string for surgical sutures.

Ruby had proven to be the best in the group when it came to first aid, and she had on multiple occasions been the one to stitch the others up when on missions. Every student on campus was required to take a remedial class of basic first aid during their first semester, and Ruby had used her elective slots to continue on this knowledge. She had even developed her own stitching style, which she felt left a smaller, less noticeable scar.

The wound closed nicely, although Ruby was seriously concerned over the amount of blood Weiss had lost. Her once nice table was dyed red, and she knew before she was even going to attempt it that the bloody markings wouldn't come out of the porous wood.

After Ruby closed the wound, she then removed her belt from Weiss's shoulder and watched, making sure that no large leaks appeared from under her stitches. A few drops beaded up around the edge of the slice towards the middle, which were quickly cleaned away. Ruby then took out some white gauze from the box and wrapped it around the entire upper arm of her partner.

Slightly dazed from blood loss, Weiss attempted a thank you, which came out mumbled and slurred, sounding more like a "khank shoo". Lifting the girl up by her good arm, Ruby picked up Weiss, folding her knee's over one of Ruby's arms and Weiss's back pressed against the other. Carrying her over to Ruby's couch/bed, the red head set her partner down gently on the sofa. "You aren't going to be able to go anywhere tonight, try to get some rest. We'll go by the hospital in the morning".

Humming in affirmation, Weiss attempted to grasp at Ruby's iconic red cloak as it swished in front of her face. This passed unnoticed as her partner returned to the table to clean up the mess left from the first aid. While there wasn't much blood, there was not much of Weiss either, and Ruby was unsure how much blood would be too much to lose. She was sure that Weiss would be fine for tonight though, as they had all lost more blood than what was on the table at one time or another on mission, and began to clean the mess up. Her earlier assumption had been correct; no matter how much she tried to soak up the blood, the giant stain on the table wouldn't come out.

After throwing a bunch of now bloodied rags into the trash, Ruby picked up the most comfortable of the three chairs, the only one with a padded seat, and placed it down next to the arm of the sofa where Weiss's head rested. A content smile briefly passed across the heiress's face, and Weiss began to drift off into a light sleep. It was times like this, when everything seemed happy and peaceful, that had Ruby think to herself 'why not just say it. It couldn't go that bad'. Weiss was no better right now than if she had drank her weight in booze, but Ruby sometimes thought she saw something behind her partners perfect reserved mask at moments like this, when Weiss loosened up. While Ruby was an extremely outgoing person, she was a coward when it came to things like that, so she just decided to enjoy the moment, content in the silence, listening to the slow breathing of the one who she could only have at the moment as a best friend.

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**Now that I am moving to a chapter by chapter basis, I thought it would be important to say how my first three stories affect these chapters. Basically, they are the first three chapters inside of these stories. I'm considering rewriting them, to fix all the things that I don't like about them (and there are a lot of things I don't like about them) so that I can put them in this set of stories, since I consider just reposting them unacceptable. I'm still mulling over that idea, and I guess I will come back with an answer when I have the time. These chapters are for one off ideas, which I may build upon or not. They may contain all of the team RWBY characters, only one of them, or some combination.**

**Also, as I have said in the description of "Black coffee, White cream" (which I still wish I could come up with a better name for) that the stories in that series are still a part of these stories, just a little too focused on one particular idea for me to include here. While they don't directly connect, they are important for the… uh… extended universe I guess. Same thing goes for anything else I write outside of this set of stories, unless I explicitly say that they aren't a part of these stories. ****Other than that, I guess I've said what I need to.**

**Rate and Review, let me know what you think, and ****I hope people will continue to enjoy what I write.**


	2. Chapter 2

Permanent Markings

"Ruby, I really don't think this is a good idea" Weiss complained as Ruby pulled on the heiress's wrist, dragging Weiss into the shop.

"You worry too much. Besides, I've always wanted one!" Ruby's sense of enthusiasm was almost contagious, and Weiss was having a hard time resisting her partner's bubbly aura of euphoria.

"You shouldn't make any rash decisions like this on a whim. You're literally going to have this stuck to you forever" Weiss reminded her. Ruby wasn't a whiner, but the idea of hearing about this, whenever Ruby came to her senses and realized the mistake, wasn't one Weiss was looking forward to. Since the two of them had signed up for the organization together, as a default the two of them would be a team as long as they were both at the hunter organization. And if what Ruby had told her was true, she was pretty sure Ruby would eventually regret this.

"Nah… It'll be fine!"

"So then why did you bring me along?" Weiss could say without a doubt that Ruby was her best friend, and she was sure that the statement was true the other way around. But over the year and a half that they had known each other, Weiss still hadn't gotten used to Ruby's way of making rash, and sometimes very stupid, decisions. While Weiss knew that to Ruby the choice to go cliff diving, or volunteer to milk snake venom, or the countless other dangerous activities Ruby had taken on a whim made perfect logical sense to the partner, Ruby also knew Weiss's lack of patience for Ruby's antics. Their lives were already dangerous enough; they didn't need Ruby to go searching for more trouble. And what made matters worse was Ruby's constant habit of signing her partner up without even asking if Weiss was mortally afraid of heights, if she was okay holding snakes, or if her partner had even the slightest desire to learn to dance to Salsa music.

"Ah… moral support?" In truth, Ruby just didn't like to go places alone, a fact everyone in team RWBY had learned. If a terrible movie came out that nobody but Ruby wanted to see, the red head would pester the group for a week until someone came along with her. And if that didn't work, Ruby would just ended up missing the movie and wait for it to come out on DVD later. It could be an endearing quality at times, but it mostly just led to the rest of the group doing things that were completely out of their comfort zones.

After a huff from Weiss, the blonde resigned herself to being stuck in the dark and cramped shop for the next few hours, and took a seat while Ruby walked over to the book of designs.

* * *

Ruby and Weiss sat in the back of the store in a small waiting area, listening to whoever was being serviced at that particular moment. They had seen 2 others leave the curtained room, both seemingly happy enough. Amid the constant buzzing, every once and a while a groan could be heard, along with a few sharp intakes as though the person was in pain. Weiss was holding on to the futile hope that those would maybe shake her partner's resolve, and that Ruby would get cold feet and decide to abandon this adventure. Unfortunately, Ruby had no fear of pain, and watched with wide eyes as a man who must have been in his early twenties stumbled out from behind the cloth, cradling his side. Ruby was next, and the red head began to lean forward, getting ready to spring towards the room.

A call from behind the curtain yelled "NEXT," and signaled for both Weiss and Ruby to move into the smaller room that they had been sitting outside of. Ruby entered first, and held open the curtain for Weiss to follow. Weiss sighed, as she knew that at this point there wasn't going to be anyway to stop Ruby short of a miracle.

Entering the area, Weiss and Ruby looked around as they took in the smaller room. In the center was a padded chair, similar to the kind seen at a dentist's office. The room smelled of smoke, and scattered around the completely white room were several small ash trays. Mirrors and cabinets were placed upon the walls, and out of a few open ones impressive arrays of needles and ink sets were visible. With his back to them sitting in a swivel chair, the artist was cleaning off a surface in preparation for them.

"Alright, so… what do you want?" Turning around to them, the man, who had to be at least forty, was covered in tattoos ranging across a wide spectrum of colors and shapes. The guy was ripped, and from the waist up wearing only an open leather vest to show off the muscles he had obviously spent so much time acquiring. Some were black and white, but most were done in full color, a rainbow of dark colors writhing on his hands, arms, neck, and his semi-exposed chest. He didn't have a spot of clean skin on him, except for his face, which was hidden behind a bushy beard and a pair of dark sunglasses. His appearance was to be expected, since he was a tattoo artist. Weiss felt relieved for a second; at least now whatever Ruby had decided on would be done well. She then realized that the tattoos on the man meant nothing; someone else had put them there.

"I brought in a photo, I wanted to see if you could do this" Ruby answered back, handing him a photo of Crescent Rose. She was standing with her back against the wall, anxiously rocking back and forth from her heels to the balls of her feet.

Picking up the picture, the man twisted his head around the photo, as if he was looking through a window instead of at a sheet of paper. Handing the photo back, he said to her "nice weapon, I take it is yours?" While the two were more plainly dressed than most, it was obvious to anyone in this town who the hunters were. They stuck out like sore thumbs in this town. Sighing idly, the man scratched his nose and said to her "would you happen to have a better picture? The scale is hard to see from that photo against the blue background".

Instead of pulling out another photo, Ruby simply pulls off her back a large metal box, and begins to unfurl Crescent Rose from its smaller state. After the press of a button, the process was mostly automated, and Ruby twisted the barrel that was emerging from the weapons barrel to aid the process. Once the weapon was fully unfurled, Ruby took the scythe and began to flick it down, to send the scythe's blade into the floor. Just before the tip was stuck into the laminate floor, a small white hand reached out and grabbed Crescent Rose at the base of the blade, where it connected to the barrel.

"Ruby…, I am tired watching you write checks to repair the flooring of every store you bring your weapon in. Besides, I'd rather not have waited here for 3 hours to just get kicked out". Weiss then released the blade, making her point clear.

The tattoo artist hadn't noticed their exchange, and was instead looking at the scythe. "Alright, I would say I could do that. Where do you want it?"

Obviously excited, Ruby turned around, and with her left hand she motioned where she wanted the tattoo. "I was hoping to have the barrel go down my spine, and then have the blade go across my shoulder blade and end right here" Ruby motioned, pointing with a finger right to where her shoulder connected to the rest of her body.

Humming along, the tattoo artist asked "could I give you my own personal opinion?" And without waiting for Ruby's answer he said "going along the spine would be really painful, and it wouldn't look that good. You're too bony; the barrel would come out looking distorted… and a little creepy". Standing up, circling around Ruby as if to get a good view of her from all four sides, he said "I would suggest instead that we put it on your shoulder blade. It will be a little smaller than what you had planned, but it will look a lot better since it won't be curving over and across your shoulder blade".

Ruby wasn't as happy with that, but decided that he was a professional and probably knew what was best. He asked her to put the scythe on a counter so that he could use it as reference during the tattoo. While she did that, he took off the foot rest from the chair, and he shortened the height of the back of the chair. He gave Ruby quick instructions on how to sit in the chair, facing towards the back with her arms crossed on the top, and then he left so that Ruby could take off her shirt to get ready.

While the man was gone, Weiss made one last ditch effort to get Ruby to change her mind. "We could leave now, we haven't done anything yet."

"Nope" Ruby answered simply while taking her shirt off. If she had been wearing her usual corset as well undressing would have been far more annoying, but at least Ruby had brought enough sense to only wear a simple t-shirt with her combat skirt today. Ruby wasn't in any way shy, and disrobed down to a simple bra, which she clipped off once she was sitting down with her stomach against the leather. The red head found it amusing the sudden interest her partner had taken in the ceiling fan. It didn't dawn on her that Weiss was simply trying not to stare at the cigar burns all across Ruby's right shoulder and upper arm **(1)**.

Weiss had always been curious, but other than the somewhat cryptic double meaning statements from Yang and Ruby whenever she asked, she had never been able to learn anything else about the blackened skin markings from the other two. Ruby had gotten a little less religious about hiding them around her four friends as she had become more comfortable with the group, but she still refused to talk about them. Weiss had finally decided to just let Ruby have that secret, and to just not push the question.

When the tattoo guy reentered, Ruby just stared ahead as the man got out the colors he needed for the tattoo. Just to make sure he asked "I'm guessing you want this in color?" Really looking at his canvas for the first time, he said to Ruby "I could put this on your right shoulder, cover up some of those".

Ruby only shook her head, and in a tone that was extremely out of character, just mumbled into the leather "just do the left."

* * *

Waking out of the shop, Ruby rolled her shoulder a few times, with Weiss following behind her. "Worth it?" Weiss was skeptical of the smile on Ruby's face, as the process had looked quite painful. Applying the tattoo hadn't gone well. Ruby was an extremely lean person, and it had led to a lot of pain with the application of the tattoo, even if the tattoo was being applied to an area that was supposed to be less painful. Ruby had spent most of the forty minutes with her eyes snapped shut and her jaw clenched tightly.

Weiss hadn't been able to get a good look often, but from what she had seen it looked as though the tattoo had at least turned out well. Neither of the two girls saw a finished product though; as soon as the tattoo was finished, the tattoo artist placed on top of the tattoo a large bandage, and told Ruby to not lie on her back for the next few hours, to give the ink a chance to set. He also told Ruby that she could take off the bandage in a few hours, and that the itching that she was feeling from the tattoo's healing process would last for the next week, two at the most.

Almost giddy from how happy she was, the red head answered "Yep, I've got a feeling it will be."

Weiss checked her watch, and says to her partner "Hey, are you okay if I leave you for a few hours? I have to go to talk with one of our professors sooner or later, so I might as well go now."

"Which one?"

"First aid" Weiss groaned. The only class Weiss wasn't good at, which was somewhat ironic with Ruby's mastery over the course. Ruby always joked it was just so that they could continue in harmony, but Weiss sometimes thought that her score was being knocked lower so that Ruby and Weiss wouldn't be number one in the class a pair. Ruby was labeled at number one in the class, a title she defended vigorously, even against her own partner. If the red head had fought for such high placements as rigorously in all their other classes, Weiss might have had to worry about her position as valedictorian. And Weiss, who felt as though she was trying just has hard, was constantly receiving low markings, to pull Ruby and Weiss down to second place in the class.

"Ah…" Ruby simply mumbled. Weiss for some reason thought that their professor was jipping the blonde out on her grades. Unfortunately, Ruby knew the truth was that Weiss was just bad at first aid. Unable to break that to fact Weiss however, Ruby let her partner continue to silently harbor a grudge against their teacher. Ruby nodded to Weiss, silently wishing that maybe their teacher would just break the news gently, and began to walk towards the downtown where her apartment was located. Calling over her shoulder, she yelled back as she began to walk away "just be at my place tonight, we are still having movie night. And thanks for coming along!"

"Sure, no problem" Weiss answered halfheartedly as she slowly walked away towards Beacon, feeling as though she had in some way let down her friend. It was what Ruby wanted, but what good partner would let their friend get such a large and life altering marking on a whim.

* * *

Around four hours later, everyone had gathered in Ruby's apartment, which had undergone a few minor changes in preparation for the movie night. Ruby had laid out a cloth over one of the tables, the one with a large blood stain, and had borrowed a few chairs from a neighbor for the movie. She had also run an extension cord over to the table, and had hooked up her crappy TV so that it set up on the table.

They had all began the movie in a semi-circle around the table, and as the film went on they all slowly drifted away from the screen. Ruby went over to another table and had begun to clean Crescent Rose, Weiss had begun browsing the internet on her phone, and Yang had meticulously filed all of the nails on one hand and had started to work on the other. Blake was the only one of them who seemed to be truly interested in the movie, and was staring at the shootouts on the large screen with wide eyes. When the final scene gave over to credits, everyone looked up from their own projects and returned to the group setting.

"Ruby, your tastes suck" Yang complained. She moved over to sit cross-legged on the table in front of the screen since the movie was now over.

"Yang, it was a classic. It's the greatest western ever made" Ruby said in defense.

Yang exclaimed "Yeah, yeah, sure. And guess what? It was sooooooooooooooooo boring!" At this Ruby just shook her head. She would never be able to educate her foster sister's tastes.

Blake, who was still sitting in her chair next to Weiss, simply stated "I liked it", and then asked Ruby "so did you actually get that tattoo you were thinking about today?"

"Yep" Ruby answered, and walked back to the group from where she had been standing at another table, as she had finished cleaning the rust stains that had begun to form on the blade of her weapon.

"Oh, can we see?" Blake leaned forward, interested. Yang was also visibly interested, and turned around fully to look over.

Ruby looked over at Weiss, pointing a thumb at her bandaged shoulder and asked "how long did the guy say I needed to keep this on for".

Weiss looked at her watch and thought for a moment. "You should be good."

Ruby lifted the back of her shirt, walking over to a mirror she kept over in the corner to check her appearance in the morning. She then turned to Weiss, who was closest, and asked her to lift up the bandage for her.

As Weiss got her fingers under the bandage, being careful to not scratch Ruby's back or the tattoo, Yang quipped from across the room "Okay, so let's take bets on how much the red is going to have smeared".

Ruby rolled her eyes, and then looked in the mirror at the tattoo, which was now uncovered.

"It actually looks… cool" Weiss commented, surprised by how clean it looked. Looking like a perfect copy of Ruby's weapon, the barrel followed parallel to the red head's spine. The blade curved nicely along the bone of Ruby's shoulder blade, and the shadow behind the entire tattoo silhouetted it nicely. When Ruby moved her arm, her entire tattoo moved, and no part of the tattoo stayed static, leading the tattoo to not look like it was bending. The artist had done a great job.

"…That actually looks nice" Blake commented, moving up closer to get a good look. She then added "It's smaller than you said you wanted it."

"You sound as though you thought it wouldn't" Yang trilled back, mock arguing with the raven haired girl.

"I thought it wouldn't come out well, with all the details that are required on it", Blake muttered idly. Trailing her finger lightly down the barrel of the tattoo, giving Ruby a shiver, she then looked the red head in the eyes through the mirror and said to her "you know you are going to have to get touch up work on this tattoo every year or so, to keep the edges sharp, right?"

"Yeah, he told me that" Ruby affirmed. She notice the sad look on her partners face, and was somewhat perplexed by it. Ruby wasn't going to call her partner out on it though. Yang, however, wasn't that subtle.

"Why are you moping" Yang asked Weiss, nudging the princess with her elbow.

"She thinks she should have stopped me from getting this" Ruby answered, trying to keep the majority of the conversation away from Weiss.

"Aw come on Weiss, don't be a stick in the mud! There is nothing wrong with a tattoo!" Yang made a look of mock shock, as if to try and bring Weiss on board.

"I don't mean to be… it was just the way I was raised. Tattoo's aren't great ideas in the business world" Weiss said in a glum tone. During her homeschooling as a girl, she had been taught that a universal rule of business was that you don't do anything that could offend the values of others. While not all people disliked tattoos, nobody was ever offended at a person who had chosen to not get a few. A corporate leader had to give up fantasies in order to make themselves the most widely presentable. Turning the question on Yang, Weiss asked "would you get one?"

"I already have one Weiss" Yang stated matter-o-factly. She raised up the cuff on her sleeve and turned her right hand palm up towards Weiss. Wrapped around her wrist, and curling up onto her palm was a chain of fire tattooed in orange, red, and yellow. "Hurt like hell to get. The guy argued with me for ten minutes on it, saying that the yellow wouldn't come out well against my skin tone" Yang muttered to herself. "Anyway, you're the only one here who hasn't inked up yet; it's not that big a deal. Especially in the line of work we're all in".

"Seriously Blake… you too?"

"Yeah, I let Blondy here talk me into them" Blake grumbled playfully. Lowering the sweats she was wearing on her right hip, she showed off her own. In the same spot where Blake sheathed her sword, she had tattooed on her hip her own emblem in black.

"Them?!" Weiss was surprised that Blake would be the one to have multiple tattoos, not Yang or Ruby. Weiss had assumed that Blake would have been as conservative as she felt.

"Yeah, I also got this one here about a month after that one" Blake said while lifting up her sleeve on her right arm. In curling ivy that came out as cursive, Weiss read off of Blake's arm:

_The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it._

"I've thinking about getting a third" Blake mumbled to herself, picturing in her mind a pair of cat fangs on the back of her hand. She shook the idle thought out of her head though; she still didn't want anything that she would have a hard time hiding, and she disliked the idea of constantly having to wear gloves.

"Well… I mean… I'm not against them…" Weiss spoke softly, bouncing the tip of her foot against the floor, balancing on one foot like a stork. It was a bad habit of Weiss's, one that stemmed from the years of nervously awaiting inspection by her army of tutors and instructors. She felt as though she was going to topple and fall under all of her burdens, and the heiresses body silently mimicked the movement whenever Weiss felt uncomfortable. Yang, with her twisted sense of humor, had taken to knocking the princes over whenever she saw her doing it, in an attempt to get Weiss to quit the habit. Shoving lightly, not enough to knock Weiss over, just enough to make Weiss lose her balance, Yang said playfully "Weiss, we don't care if you like them or not, and we wouldn't be hurt if you didn't. We got them because we wanted them. You have got to stop moping so much". Yang also added in a more serious tone "you're out from under those puppet strings you've been wearing for so long. Do what you want, not what some stupid company wants from you."

Unsure of how to take that, Weiss just nodded silently, thinking to herself while everyone else returned to admiring Ruby's tattoo.

* * *

"Alright Weiss, why are we all here again?" Yang asked in an attempt at serious voice, which was hard to pull off as she was lying upside down on Ruby's couch, kicking her feet in the air.

"We have to wait for Ruby!" Weiss was feeling extremely impatient, and was dying to get share what she had done with the rest of the group. They had all arrived separately, at the call of one of Weiss's texts. They all spent so much time in Ruby's apartment, it was pretty much the groups unofficial base, that Ruby one day had gotten so annoyed at always having to let them in that she gave every one of them copies of the keys to her door.

"For?" Blake was just as impatient, even though she knew what Weiss was excited about. Weiss and Ruby's admissions to the hunter organization were late by even the organizations standards, 7 months, and Blake had heard from work that a new batch of acceptance letters had been put in the mail 3 days ago. She had wanted her friends to get a surprise, and had kept her mouth shut.

"Just wait" was Weiss's only answer, as she whirled back and forth, pacing infront of the table that only a few months earlier she had stained red. If she had been wearing her usual dress the fabric would have been flying around wildly, but today she dressed far more casually, as if she hadn't planned on going outside. She was wearing a low necked white button down shirt, a light blue skirt, and a pair of blue sandals, which Weiss had kicked off and left by the door. Walking around without shoes wasn't the greatest idea, with the flecks of metal everywhere, but Weiss didn't seem to be too worried about the idea of getting another tetanus shot. Blake and Yang had both been surprised with Weiss's appearance; the shirt wasn't even tucked in.

"Uh… fine Weiss, whatever. Hey, did you ever get that issue with your teacher fixed" Yang asked. She knew just as well as Ruby about Weiss's suspicions. But Yang on the other hand was fine with Weiss getting a small taste of reality and getting knocked down a peg, even if she wouldn't be the one to serve it to her.

Weiss just shook her head. She looked as though she was going to elaborate on what happened, but she was cut off when Ruby suddenly bursting through the door. "Weiss! You won't believe it, I've got great news!"

Blake was a little more than shell shocked when she saw the envelopes tucked under Ruby's arm. If that wasn't it, what had Weiss wanted to tell them?

After they both read their letters, Ruby attempted to wrap her arms around Weiss for a hug, jumping up and down in celebration. While Weiss did reciprocate the hug, she twisted right before Ruby grabbed her, pulling Ruby into a one armed hug, as if to protect her front. Yang didn't move from the couch, and looked like she was giving the two the biggest frown ever, if it wasn't for her still being upside down.

"Wait, wait, wait…" Blake yelled, waving her arms in front of her to get the attention. "First off, congratulations, but if Ruby was the one they sent those to, what did you want Weiss?"

"Ah… that can wait," Weiss said offhandedly, already losing her nerve.

"No, what was it Weiss?"

Going a little red in the face, Weiss mumbled while looking at the floor "I… I listened to what you guys said last night. It seemed a little odd that I was the only one left out."

Ruby looked at her, a little surprised from the look of mortified horror on Weiss's down-turned face. "What do you mean? We didn't mean the puppet string remark Weiss, I'm sorry if you took it badly."

"But you were right." Weiss, without saying anything else, untangled herself from Ruby and stepped back. Fumbling with the buttons at the bottom of the shirt, once Weiss was around four buttons up she raised the right side of the shirt, showing off her smooth, pure white stomach.

Except now, instead of pure smooth skin, a matrix of icy blue iridescent lines radiated out from a point a few inches right of the heiress's naval. It was as if someone had taken Weiss's emblem, the symbol of the Schnee company, and spun it around a few times before tattooing it to Weiss's skin. While anyone who knew what the symbol was would recognize it, Weiss's was less angular, and instead of being constructed of the perfect lines that the Schnee foundation's symbol was composed of, curved lines all swirled around a central six pointed star. The surrounding skin was a little pink, but that would fade in time.

The entire room went silent as the entire group marveled at Weiss's new décor. None of them had expected the heiress to surpass them all. Weiss's was far larger, and covered more space than any of theirs did. "…Well, is it okay?" Weiss asked a little too loudly, her voice cracking in the middle of the question.

Instead of any single complement, Weiss was suddenly bombarded with praises and questions.

"When did you get this?"

"I love the color, what is it called?"

"I like the new pattern, but why did you change the design?"

Weiss would have time to answer all of their questions, but she decided that Ruby's was the most important, both for herself to say and for all of her friends to hear. As she held the documents that proved to her the future was her own to shape, she said simply "I decided to make it my own."

* * *

**Just a quick light hearted story for my return. I was in a good mood while writing this, so this will be a lot more trivial than the stories I have planned for the next few weeks (its going to get dark people, just a warning). I just got a tattoo of my own while I was on a vacation, and I thought this would be an interesting story to write.**

**Keep on rating and reviewing, I love reading comments and hearing feedback.**


	3. Chapter 3

White Teeth and White Walls

"I really do hate you sometimes Ruby…" Weiss grumbled quietly while the red head tried to hide a smirk behind one of the office's many magazines.

"Hate is such a negative term, it's so cliché. How about opinionated… or maybe passionate?" Ruby was having a lot of fun tormenting Weiss, and she wasn't about to let her partner off easy. While Ruby couldn't be sure, she would have sworn she heard Weiss mutter darkly "murder is a crime of passion…" as a response.

The irony was just hilarious. Miss Princess perfect, the iconic angel, always perfectly dressed and perfectly groomed, had been forced to come to the dentist today because of a cavity. Weiss had been stunned when she heard this, as she had always considered herself to be a perfect brusher. She even spent ten minutes flossing every day after all of her main meals, which Ruby had always considered a little excessive. The dentist informed her that unfortunately, while she had indeed kept her teeth clean, Weiss had been so aggressive with the cleaning that she stripped them of all protective enamel and had left her perfect teeth open to all kinds of plaque and germs. He said that he was surprised that she only had the one cavity on her canine.

What was worse was that Weiss needed to have surgery before the cavity became worse. And since Weiss was paying for anesthesia, she guessed that she would need someone to give her a ride home. Blake was out of town on a mission in the eastern mountains with Yang, which knocked out those two for rides. And while she probably could have gotten away with it, Weiss didn't feel comfortable asking another student at the school. She hated owning anyone anything, and the idea of owing Juane or Nora a favor was almost as annoying as having to get a root canal itself. And that left only one other person, who was probably her first choice anyway… Ruby.

"So how exactly did you end up ruining your teeth in just the two short years you have been off on your own?" Ruby fluttered her eyes at Weiss while she asked, as if she was just some old lady that kept on forgetting the answer. She was running out of time, and she needed to rib the heiress a little bit more before Weiss was out of it. Ruby had been given laughing gas a few times in her childhood, and she remembered how little she had taken away from the experience. The days were just gone from her memory.

"Uhhhhhh…" was Weiss's only reply as she buried her face in the pillow that her small waiting room chair had been stocked with.

Actually, Weiss knew exactly how she had ruined her teeth. When she had finally gotten out of the mansion, and into the real world, Weiss was able to finally look after herself. Her whole life in the mansion, everything had been chosen for her. The clothes she would wear for the day, the meals she would have, how she would spend her time, everything. This was all bad, but the worst part without a doubt was personal hygiene. Every day since she could remember, she would have to sit in a small chair in front of a mirror and wait while one of her personal maids would do her makeup, hair, and every little cleaning requirement to look presentable. She found the whole process extremely degrading, and had on many occasions tried to get the servant to stop. One of the only times she had ever been disobedient as a child was when she had actually locked her maid out of her room, and did her makeup herself. As a punishment, which her father had approved, she lost the right to have a door that closed, and the next morning she found that the house servants had removed the entire handle from the door, allowing it to be opened and closed with only a gentle push.

All her efforts fruitless, Weiss resigned herself to being forced, from five to fifteen, to sit on the very same stool and watch as someone else, who had a severe sadistic streak, designed her hair and gave her makeup she would have never chosen for herself. The whole process made Weiss feel like a vegetable, as if she was some paralyzed victim that couldn't function on her own.

When Weiss had moved out into the on campus dormitory, she had to finally do all those things for herself, which she had been looking forward to. No more red lips or black mascara, she had cheered to herself silently as she was done up for the last time. She wondered what her assigned servant would do now, now that her ten year long position was disappearing. She hadn't worried too much however, as over the years there had been many days when her maid, who had a tendency to be in a bad mood, had left Weiss's scalp and mouth in a lot of pain.

When Weiss had started taking care of her oral hygiene, she had assumed that she was doing a good enough job; her mouth hurt just as much as when her psycho maid did it. Apparently not.

A middle aged office manager leaned around the corner, just as Ruby was about to pester Weiss a little more, and told Weiss "the doctor is ready to see you now".

Now that the moment was finally upon her, Weiss actually wished that she could hang around and have Ruby harass her a bit more. She had never been put under, and she wasn't looking forward to the experience. As Weiss got up to go into the back room, she heard Ruby cackle wickedly "have fun!"

* * *

"Weiss, would you stop moving ahead of me, it's hard to keep you standing when you are stumbling forward faster than I am walking".

Ruby's complaints fell on deaf ears as her friend stumbled out of the cab faster than Ruby could walk around the back to Weiss's side. If she hadn't been caught by her seatbelt, which Blondie had forgot to take off, Weiss would have face planted directly onto the ground. Still, Ruby hadn't expected Weiss to get this loopy, and listening to her partner's giggles over jokes that she wouldn't share the entire ride to Weiss's apartment had been somewhat annoying.

It wasn't easy getting Weiss's seatbelt off while she was hanging out of the cab, and she almost landed in the street side gutter when Ruby finally was able to clip off the belt. Ruby had to stick her foot out and catch Weiss under the shoulder to keep her from going into the drainage pipe. And while all of this was going on the usually reserved princess perfect was laughing manically, getting a kick out of the whole experience, as if the idea of almost getting swept into the sewers to play with the alligators was the coolest thing to happen to her all week. It took a lot to get on Ruby's nerves, but Weiss had succeeded, and the red head was a few steps away from just taking the giggling girl and leave her on the steps of her apartment building. Someone would find her eventually, Ruby mused to herself. But she was a good friend, even if Ruby was still muttering darkly under her breath all the things she would do to wipe the smile off of Weiss's face, and half carried-half dragged her partner across the sidewalk to the apartment building.

Getting open the lobby door would have been an issue if the door man hadn't been there to hold it open for them. As she walked by Ruby wasn't sure if she should tip the man, or just nod thanks, so she just decided to pretend to be totally occupied with Weiss. It might have been a little rude, but still better than trying to fumble for some cash to then only be told to keep it.

Getting into the lobby, Ruby had always found the place a little stiff. It was definitely designed with the one percent in mind, having cherubs on the ceiling, gold enameling, the works. Combined with all of the staff dressed in royal red overcoats, Ruby found the place off putting. Still, she could care less where Weiss lived, as they never visited the more formal partner's place. Ruby had only been here one other time, to help her partner bring in a dozen or so boxes of things from when Weiss moved out of the dormitory.

Getting Weiss into the elevator wasn't easy, as her partner seemed more interested in taking a nap on the common area couch than in her own home. Ruby had just managed to get Weiss in the elevator, turned her back for one second to pick out a floor number, when suddenly she turned back to find Weiss had stumbled back out into the lobby again.

Getting in front of Weiss, Ruby had finally hit her breaking point. "You probably won't remember this anyway…" she began, drawing herself up to her full height as she saw the elevator begin to close over her partner's shoulder.

"Hmmmmm…" Weiss hummed happily, smiling at Ruby, not even registering her partner had drawn her leg up and had aimed the bottom of her shoe at Weiss.

In one swift motion, Ruby extended her leg, and sent Weiss sailing through the two doors back into the elevator. Ignoring the startled looks from a few of the staff members, Ruby followed after her partner, who was now slumped over on her side, running the tips of her fingers along the lines of the tiled elevator floor. As she pressed the close door button she looked down at her partner, who didn't seem bothered in the least that she had been kicked into the small box she now found herself in, the red head muttered "I hope for your sake that we don't get stopped on the way up".

* * *

They didn't get stopped, luckily, and they rose to the 17th floor without any interruptions. Instead of trying to guide Weiss into the room, Ruby just took complete control over her annoying burden and carried her partner over her shoulder down the hallway towards Weiss's apartment. Opening the door with a key that Ruby had taken out of Weiss's handbag before arriving at the condominium, Ruby used her foot to lower the handle and kick in the door. She might have been a little too rough; she left a good centimeter deep divot in the wood above the door knob where the steel side of her shoes had hit the door.

When Ruby got into the apartment, she was perplexed for a moment why there were a bunch of boxes next to the door. Maybe Weiss had received a few new packages recently. Carrying Weiss down the hall, she threw her partner onto what she assumed was her bed, although Ruby would never have guessed Weiss would sleep on a cat print quilt. Quickly shaking off Weiss's shoes, eager to be done, she flicked off the lights and left the already dozing heiress in the dark room on top of the comforter. Ruby began to pad towards the door and was half out of the apartment, but came to a stop when she actually read a few of the boxes that had been placed by the door.

_Books_

_School Supplies_

_Kitchen Tools _

_Plates_

Taking a step closer, Ruby actually recognized a few of the boxes written in her handwriting, when she had helped Weiss pack and move the dozen boxes across town. Two boxes labeled 'clothes' had been emptied and placed on their sides, but the other ten or so were all still mostly full, and only one or two of them had actually had the taped shut tops slit open.

"…She didn't even unpack?" Actually looking around for the first time, Ruby noticed the lack of… anything. The walls were all the standard cream color that builders made them, so that any new color would be paintable. She walked back down the hall, and actually noticed that besides Weiss's bedroom, which was still pretty barren by any normal person's standards, every room was totally empty. She didn't find a chair, a table, a bookshelf, anything anywhere, other than the few things Weiss had actually placed in her room. There were only boxes for the unassembled furniture shoved up against the walls in the final room she checked, as if Weiss were hiding them from the rest of the apartment. And hidden behind all of the boxes were even larger, brown cardboard boxes, printed with pictures of a refrigerator, a TV, a stove, and a dishwasher.

This was strange, even by Ruby's standards. She could leave; she needed to put the finishing touches on a new paint job she was working on for her Crescent Rose (she was playing around with some dark undertones to make the silver steel really stand out). But something really bothered her about Weiss living in an entirely empty house for the last 4 months. Sighing heavily, she walked over and picked up one of the lighter packages, the box for a wooden self-assembly dining room chair, turning it around in her hands while looking at where to open the packaging.

* * *

"Ruby, why does my chest hurt?" As she stumbled out of her room, Weiss could hear some kind of banging coming from the other room down the hall. Shuffling down the hall, trying to shake the remnants of the anesthesia from her mind, she peered around the corner to find Ruby hunched over a sheet of paper, with her face so close she was almost pressing her nose against the floor. "What are you doing?"

Not looking back, now trying to fit two wooden poles together, Ruby mumbled back "well well, sleeping beauty is finally awake. Feel alright?"

Rubbing her eyes, Weiss answered back "yeah, although I still feel a little groggy." About to turn away, back to her room, she suddenly noticed what Ruby was actually doing. "Why…why are you building a table?"

"This is the kitchen, dummy. I moved in the heavy stuff first; this is the last piece I need to build and then this room is done". Weiss looked around, and noticed that the refrigerator and the stove were both shoved into place, and she could hear a hum behind her from a running dishwasher. Throwing her hands up in exasperation, Ruby exclaimed "why are all of these instructions impossible to understand. I'm never buying from Ikea if this is what every instruction manual is going to be like. There was the one in Belgian, the one without any diagram, and now this table doesn't come with the right crescent wrench." Unfurling her legs, she mumbled to herself "I think the TV hutch came with one that will fit."

Weiss had a hard time following all of that; apparently her mind was still a little foggy. As she followed behind Ruby down the hall, she began to notice several empty frames were now hung on the wall, and heard her red headed partner mutter "we need to fill those". Weiss also saw that it was pitch black outside of the windows, and while Weiss had no idea how long she had been out for, she knew that she had to have gotten back to her house sometime before noon, as her doctor said the procedure would be over before 11 am.

"Thanks…but why… why are you…" Weiss was starting to get annoyed at how fuzzy headed she felt, and had a hard time completing the thought "why are you building all of this… stuff?"

As Ruby swiped the tool off of a smaller table in the center of the room opposite a TV, she answered back "I find the idea my partner living as a monk somewhat off-putting. How did you even live here for four months without getting any furniture outside of what you put up in the bedroom?"

"I didn't need it" was Weiss's simple reply.

"Pfff… you should have told me you didn't need a new flat screen" Ruby joked, already sitting down to see if the tool part matched with what she needed.

"You can have it, I don't watch TV…" Weiss mumbled, starting to feel sleepy again, constantly jerking her head up.

"Nah, I don't either, although you might be hosting movie night from now on." Sighing happily, she turned the final bolt in the table and in one smooth motion flipped it over, so that it was now resting on its legs. Ruby leaned on one corner, to see if the legs were all the same length and didn't need adjusting. Satisfied, Ruby cleaned up all of the spare parts while saying to Weiss "so… not many colors go with brownish-yellow tile floors, it's an ugly color in my opinion, but I thought maybe going with a light green could look nice".

Weiss only nodded along, she could care less if the colors matched, and followed Ruby across the hall to the finished living room, where the red head put the wrench back with its box and instructions. "That's it. You need to get a couch or something for this room, but other than that everything is set up".

"Uh, thanks Ruby" Weiss mumbled, not really listening. "Where did you put all of the boxes?"

A little puzzled that Weiss's first question was on cleaning up, Ruby said "I left all of the boxes next to what came out of them". Weiss just nodded, slowly pressing on her collar bone and feeling her bruise's pain spike slightly with the pressure. Ruby knew exactly what time it was, but theatrically checked her watch so that she could say "well, it's getting really late; it's after midnight. I think I'll be going".

"Okay… thank you, for… all of this, and for today too" Weiss mumbled, already starting to feel the claws of sleep beginning to worm their ways back into her mind. Starting to look around, she started to say "I think I have a second mattress somewhere if you don't want to head back this late".

"Yeah, it's set up in the second bedroom" Ruby responded, beginning to lace up her shoes. "I'll be fine; it shouldn't be that hard to find a cab back to downtown."

"OK, I guess I'll see you… later".

"I guess" Ruby mimicked, joking over how exhausted Weiss sounded. "I'll see you tomorrow Weiss". And with that Ruby let herself out, and closed the door behind her.

And with a small sigh, Weiss looked around the now actually furnished house. She couldn't be upset, as what Ruby did for her was very kind. But she really hadn't wanted any of the stuff her father's interior designer had ordered for her, it made the house feel less like her own. She didn't even choose to live here, she just one day was told by one of the family accountants that her residence would now be in this building, and was asked if she wanted a western or eastern facing apartment. She would have to cancel whatever Ruby had wanted to do tomorrow, as she now had plans of her own. This would now be the second time she had disassembled all of her apartment's furniture, as the delivery company set up all the furniture when they brought it over. It only took her an entire day the first time; she could probably finish the job in half the time tomorrow.

"I might leave up the frames" Weiss muttered to herself as she trudged back to bed. They were just pieces of wood; her father couldn't fill those at least.

* * *

**I was feeling a little depressed, so this is probably a little more of a downer than my usual chapters for these stories, especially towards the end. But still, give me the feedback you think I should hear. Thanks for reading.**


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